Lee - Denimhunters

Distorted Denim

On my way to a meeting in the late afternoon of the first day of this year’s Distortion festival in Copenhagen I met Karl who was wearing a pair of Lee 101Z jeans from the Gold Label collection. It’s been a while since I last approached a complete stranger on the street to take his photo, which still can be a bit overwhelming, but fortunately he already knew about Denimhunters and what we do. Being the manager of the denim department in Urban Outfitters Karl also knows a thing or two about denim. Actually he told me about a bit of worn in denim they keep in the shop that I might drop by to have a look at soon. Until then enjoy the fruit of his efforts and patience.

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Published on 2 June 2012 2 Comments

Icons of Denim: Lee Rider Jacket

As we’ve written in the article about the history of Lee, the innovative company was the first jeans manufacturer to introduce a slim-fitting denim jacket in 1931. It is known as the 101J. In 1933 they introduced the Storm Rider, which has become one of the most iconic denim jackets out there. This article, however, focuses on the 1946 Rider jacket. It features key design elements like two front pockets (that are slanted for easy access), zig zag reinforcement running along the button holes, plastic buttons as waistband adjustment, and under collar stitching to make it stand up. That is setting a lot of standards.

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Published on 14 May 2012 11 Comments

Don’t Bother With Washing

Micke Fält who’s the owner/co-founder of Malmö based heritage brand ROOKTOWN sent me some pictures of his ”allmost” worn in Lee 101B Hair on Hide for the ”win a pair of jeans from Meadow”-competition. He bought the jeans in the year 2002, and they’ve never been washed. More like this please.

You can read more about ROOKTOWN in the review of Meadow.

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Published on 27 February 2012 Leave a Comment

The Wear of a Denim Artisan

This pair of Lee 101S (the Kaihara version) has been worn in by Timmy Persson who lives in Gothenburg, Sweden. Right now he’s studying, but he has been working with denim for a couple of years. He wore the jeans every day for seven month straight, and then machine washed them at 40° celcius. After that he has worn them almost every day for one year and during that time he washed them every fourth month. Now he only wears them on special occasions.

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Published on 20 February 2012 Leave a Comment

The Dean Jeans: 1952 Lee 101Z

As we’ve mentioned numerous times before, the Japanese are the world’s super denim nerds, and Lee Japan makes some of the most incredible reproductions. This is a stitch by stitch recreation of the Lee 101Z Riders as it was in 1952. Once you start inspecting the details further, you’ll soon realise the level of commitment put into these jeans to make them look completely like the original. Actually, the stitches in the “Lazy S” have already started to come out, which they also did on the originals. Oh, and by the way, there’s wide consensus among the denim aficionados that this was the model that James Dean wore in two of his movies. Yet the jeans were also worn by countless other rebels like Jackson Pollock and Bob Dylan.

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Published on 17 January 2012 7 Comments

The Golden Age of Lee

Working at the Brund shop in Østerbro, you almost always meet some nice folks with beautiful denim – the place just sort of attracts denim lovers – and the best thing about it is that we can take the time to talked a bit about it. Last sunday I met this customer who had been wearing these Lee jeans for as long as six years.

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Published on 20 December 2011 3 Comments

Shaving Mr Lee

Here’s an update from the Støy Munkholm-Lee 101 project which was launched back in early September. The boys have been visiting with the local barber in Aarhus, where one of the participants in the project actually work - everyone was obviously wearing Lee jeans 101. Soon you’ll be able to read more about what the other participants are working with and what they put their jeans through daily, so keep an eye on the project at Støy Munkholm website.